Monday, April 30, 2007

My new best friend, although he is probably not a regular reader here, is Krishnan Guru-Murthy, who presented a documentary/news programme on Channel 4 this evening about India. The programme was, I suppose, quite good, cramming lots of information into about 45 minutes. (The racial, religious and class bigotry that remain at the centre of Indian culture were all reported on in what seemed like a fair and comprehensive way).

What really appealed to me, though, was his interview with a junior government minister, Ashwani Kumar. Good old Krish got really pissed off with the smug, glib and mendacious answers that this prize moron was giving.

I am not, as you know, a man of violence, but had Mr Guru-Murthy leapt out of his chair and kicked seven shades of shoeshine out of his interviewee, as he looked as if he wanted to, I have to confess that I would be hard-pressed to stifle a cheer.

Wouldn’t it be nice to see an established TV journalist actually say “Don’t give me that fucking crap, you lying, hypocritical, slimy bastard”? Krishnan may be the first. I hope that if he does it, he does not lose his job as a result. In other words, it is nice to see someone who cared about what he was reporting on, rather than using the TV camera as an excuse to show off.

(I shall be available for autographs at the conclusion of this article.)

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Up until this evening I had taken the stance of opposition to Scottish separation from the UK, not for any other reason than that it had been supported by the Scottish Nationalist party. In my book, any group of people who include Nationalist in their title should be viewed with a certain degree of suspicion. (Hands up all of those of you who thought I was going to say “Scottish” instead of “Nationalist” there). I loathe the concept of Nationalism. There may be an element of truth in the accusation that I adopt this posture because if we were to be grouped by ethnic type, then I would be with the fat, ugly, ginger twats, but I have more altruistic reasons for my distrust of those with a parochial view of the world.

That is until my old mate Gordon Brown, he of the lugubrious disposition, enlisted the help of scientists in his campaign against the SNP. According to my friends at the BBC, he could only find 61 of the buggers to side with him. I don’t know how hard he looked. My eyebrows are arched at the lack of enthusiasm found in the scientific community to poke their very ugly noses into someone else’s business. They are normally at the forefront of such nonsense. Perhaps it is Brown that they object to. I do not have figures to hand. There may be many more than 61 scientists in the UK, who is to say? I doubt whether our frail economy could support many more than that, and even my vivid imagination is stretched to encompass the prospect of what we need that many for, and what they do all day. I may be wrong. The islands may be overrun with them, and only 61 failed to come up with a good excuse when Brown called to enlist their support. “Daphne, if that fool Brown calls, tell him I am conducting important research into the average diameter of lumps of coal and can’t possibly speak to him”.

Whatever the facts and figures may be, and both Gordon Brown and scientists are notoriously unreliable when it comes to sums, the fact that this many of them are in favour of union with Scotland leads me to the conclusion that independence for the Scots can only be a good thing.

The whole of the article at the BBC is riddled with nonsense. I am slightly suspicious that it is the work of my new friend Reg, who, by his own admission, has a new job, and is very inebriated indeed.

He (Brown) said: "Of the world's top 200 universities, Scotland has three - more than Ireland, Iceland and Norway combined.”

What? It is the early hours of the morning, and I can’t quite deduce what he is trying to say. It may be that he thinks that having lots of universities is a good thing, who can tell? Personally, I cannot fathom how an economy based upon crofting, crocheting porridge and trying to find the last remnants of fossil fuels in the North Sea can possible thrive with all of those bloody students, and if he thinks that being joined to England will make the Scots less prosperous, then I would like to know if there is anyone south of Berwick involved in any useful trade. It seems to me that we are all accountants, marketers, conservatory designers or telephone sanitisers these days. The last time anyone in Britain produced anything of any use was when someone gave Engelbert Humperdinck a passport, allowing him to leave the country.

Apparently, according to the BBC (or Newcastle Brown addled Reg as the case may be), a group of prominent Scottish footballers have spoken out in favour of the Union. That must be all right then. We can’t go raising the school leaving age without the report of a working party consisting of Nobby Stiles, Ian Wright and Peter Shilton. It would be wrong to join the European Union single currency without thorough scrutiny by Dion Dublin. I trust that none of you has rushed into matrimony without first seeking the approval of Malcolm Macdonald.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

I attended a meeting in my village this evening, where someone addressed me by the name that I use here, rather than the silly pseudonym I use to conduct my worldly affairs. There are now at least two people in my village who can put my name and face together. Three if you count me, although I am notoriously unreliable. Much of my success in bringing you all news about the major events of the age are due to my being able to retain some degree of anonymity, and I am more than a little concerned that fame and glamour, which I have struggled to escape from over the years, are about to engulf me. I will try to keep things much as they are. I shall not repine.

I have been reading a rather wonderful book, which I recommend to you all. It is called “Fathers and Sons” by Alexander Waugh. I suggest you all obtain a copy, whether you know of the gentleman or not, and take your time to read it. Some parts I found rather dry, but on the whole it was most enjoyable. I will say nothing more lest I spoil the enjoyment of it for you. If you get a chance to see the television programme that was made about the book, then I recommend that to you also.

I see, courtesy of my friends at the BBC, that there has been some sort of contest to judge the world’s sexiest women. I am delighted to inform you (no, you silly bugger, I was not one of them) that of the top ten, I recognised the names of two of them, and would not be able to put a name to the face of any. Well, not the correct name, at any rate, I could probably make something up. It is indeed a welcome relief that I am no longer pursued by such people wherever I go.

My dear friend Richard has hinted elsewhere that he is hopeful of my turning my attention to the subject of Biros. I am not entirely sure whether he is serious, as he seemed less than interested in Dave’s wonderfully informative treatise about cake decoration or the songs of Billy Fury or some such, and may have been being a little sarcastic, a habit for which I have had to chastise him in the past. Unfortunately, I dare not take the risk of treating his request as frivolous. There would be dire consequences were I to handle cries for help in a trivial manner. A Biro is a make of ballpoint pen. In correct usage it does not mean any ballpoint pen, but only those made by the Biro Company. Then biro pen was named after its inventor, Mr Pen. I trust that this helps.

Perhaps someone can help me with a puzzle. Over these last few weeks several people have visited my pages after coming from this web page:http://www.writestuffautographs.com/shop/images/products/film298.jpgAs far as I can tell, there is no link to me from there, nor, more importantly, is there any reason for there to be. That young lady is neither my mistress nor my daughter. If any of you can help me with this I will ask Dave to write you an essay on the subject of his choice.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

In the words of the great 20th Century philosopher Alexei Sayle, don’t people talk some fucking cak?

I have been out today. I don’t get out much these days – work at home, occasionally communicate with other humans non-electronically, but generally have little in the way of social intercourse.

Today I went to London on the train. Don’t people talk some fucking cak? I have never been one to subscribe to the concept that my private conversations are of interest to the entire planet. On the contrary, I recognise that they are seldom of interest even to my conversatees, and therefore tend to talk less than most people. I have, however, noticed the trend that people talk some fucking cak. Shut up you bastards. I don’t care about your pox ridden families, your lobotomised friends or your dreary careers. Keep this information to yourself. Or start a blog about it and bar me from it.

I take my responsibilities here very seriously, which is why the posts are laden with valuable information, steeped in the truth and always written in a charming, clear and friendly way. I do not, however, foist my views on the world. I am sure that there may be a few (a very few) members of the species out there who do not view my writing as the epitome of wisdom, and choose to disregard my advice. That is their choice, I bear no malice. (Twats).

I am afraid to say that most of the people today who were guilty of talking fucking cak were of the younger generation. This excludes the lady this evening who seemed to think that everyone in the railway carriage wanted to know what Tim’s problem was, even when it was perfectly obvious that his biggest problem was that he moved in social circles where people talked fucking cak. Loudly.

I suppose it is inevitable that as I approach the prospect of being stuck in a box and buried (ecologically of course), that I should start to have a jaundiced view of youth. I have managed to put off this symptom of being a crusty old bastard for quite a long while, and in general I find most young people better company than older ones, on a one to one basis, but when they gather together, they seem to have perfected the art of talking fucking cak much better than their elders.

To illustrate the point that I prefer the company of young people, I should tell you about my new friends who have included me in their new email group. Yes, thanks to my having a gmail address made up of just my name with no numbers or special characters, I sometimes get an interesting email intended for someone else. I am now in negotiation to join a rock band as bass player. I suspect the band is in the United States, and this may create some logistical problems. I guess I will just have to play louder to be heard. I do not know the name of the band, or even whether it has a name, but I would welcome your suggestions. In the meantime, one of their number sent me an email consisting of the words “Hey dude … sup”. I replied “Hanging”. I hope that this did not expose me as one of the uncool. Again, your advice and views on this are welcomed. Rest assured, I will not let my new found fame affect me. I will continue to be known by the name I use here, I will probably not alter my appearance, and will not appear in a promotional photograph looking surly. I will resist the temptation to sleep with legions of teenage fans of either sex. I will not get a tattoo or a piercing. I will not throw things out of hotel windows, or appear on stage in an indecent way. I may, however, should the opportunity arise, shag Marianne Faithful. I will let you know.

Regular readers (aMToNW) will be relieved to hear that I have turned down the many requests to attend the funeral of Yeltsin.

Frankly, I never liked the man, although I never met him sober. He spoke English with a strange west country accent, which made him sound even more dense than he actually was. Beware of leaders who are described as “not having lost touch with ordinary people”, it is usually a euphemism for being thick. Andropov remains my favourite Soviet leader. He could breakdance with the best of them, and sang the complete Rolf Harris song book with a Queensland accent. These were only two of his many talents, I am, as you know, not given to spreading idle gossip about my talented and famous friends, so I will not tell you more, for the moment. Brezhnev was actually a blonde woman called Tracey, from Kiev. The old Soviet Union could not countenance the prospect of the world knowing that they had a woman leader, so they constructed that awful face mask for her. This explains why Brezhnev’s expression never changed.

Both Andrew York and John Major wanted me to accompany them on the journey. Dim Andy is afraid that he will miss his stop. You might be surprised to hear this and treat it as a joke, but on at least four occasions he has forgotten to get off the plane when it touched down, and consequently missed affairs of state, to be returned home looking even more confused than usual. The last time I travelled with him I had to place a postit note on his forehead to remind the stewardesses to escort him from the plane. John has read an interesting book about Huntingdonshire butterflies that he would like to discuss. Is it any wonder I am staying at home?

Monday, April 23, 2007

The festivities in Rome are lasting much longer than was budgeted for. I could have told them this. I have never known anyone hold their drink like Ratty, and don't see a downturn in the momentum before May at this rate.Sister Mary Shania, of the order of the Unrevealed Mysteries, did her best to put a lie to that nomenclature by winning a 4 euro bet with a member of the Kenyan college of Cardinals, when she dived into the Trevi fountain, displaying the glory of the Lord.A few quick phone calls (and I wish I spoke Italian more fluently) managed to persuade them to pass the blame onto some poor pleb from Milan.I don't know what the Italians get so upset for. I have been to the Trevi fountain. It is just some old bricks covered by water that you would not drink even in the desert. In my view, Rome is well overdue for redevelopment. I mean, would you want to live in a 2000 year old house? I am tempted to get my old pal the Duke of Westminster to buy it up, and get my friends at Barratt's to knock up some nice modern semis, with a garage and garden each. I am sure there will be some complaint from the stick in the mud locals, but we should not stand in the way of progress.It is a good job that they haven't found out what the Bishop of Neasden carved into one of the pillars at the Pantheon during Ratty's party.

Update

Following requests, I have decided to publish a photograph to illustrate this story. I hope this will keep you happy.

I cannot believe these motherfuckers. It is 2007. These fuckers are 200 years behind the times.This must be the most backward fucking place on earth.What in the name of holy fuck is wrong with them.Right in the middle of the fucking bible belt. Egypt, you are safe. If God wants to get pissed with anyone, then these fuckers deserve it.And if anyone thinks there is any merit in segregation, you can fuck off and your comment will be deleted.love and peace.

Friday, April 20, 2007

Despite my many protestations, people do not believe that I turn down wedding invitations. This week, I have been attempting to recover from the party in Rome, but never intended to go to Mumbai for the joining of Aishwarya to Mr Bachchan jr. I don't know how many of you have ever tried to turn down an invitation to an Indian wedding, but it is a tiresome process, and by Thursday I was considering taking up residency in my garden shed in order to escape the constant hammering on the front door.I do not see, however, why my readers (a Mrs Trellis of North Warangal), should not benefit from my explanation of some of the rituals and customs surrounding the ceremonies.

Someone not familiar with etiquette bought a pop-corn machine as a wedding gift. It is an Indian tradition to blow on all wedding presents, as a symbol of purification. In this case the groom was showered with cheap confectionery which attached itself to his make-up.

Someone with the same problem offered poor old Amitabh a sherbet dab.

Mr. Dutt was later disappointed to learn that the custom of bidding at auction for first go with the bride had been abolished by the British in 1884.

Monday, April 16, 2007

I am obliged to a dear friend and occasional reader of this nonsense, a Mr Trellis of North Epsom, who has encouraged me to share a little of the details of the birthday shindig in the Vatican. I have just arrived home, and would perhaps be better advised to collect my thoughts before attempting to chronicle the events, but I think that someone spiked my food, and I appear to have let my abstemious and well-behaved self slip into the background. I cannot really feel guilty about this (there is so much in Catholicism to feel guilty about, after all), as Keith Moon in his heyday would be hard pressed to outdo some of the scenes witnessed this weekend. As a consequence of the tampering, I have to confess that I am unclear about which of the following scenes could be hallucinations and which actually occurred. I must confess that I tend towards the latter.

I am not, as you all well know, a judgemental person on the whole, and believe that the Pontiff is allowed to let his tiara down every 80 years or so. I therefore ask you to treat these insights as confidential, and not to be spread around to satisfy the curiosity of the masses.

David Beckham is not aware that the pope is catholic. He is aware of where his wife shat. It was not, unfortunately, in the woods.

Variety acts can be very entertaining, I allude to the display put on by around 24 cardinals, in full crimson attire, singing “Satisfaction” while dancing in the style of the Tiller girls. (If you are under 50, look it up. I am too jaded to be bothered with explanations).

The archbishop of Canterbury was not invited, and did not attend. Just as well. I saw at least thirty people dressed up as him, and none of them contributed much to the spirit of reunification of the Christian church.

Some Swiss guards are very camp given the opportunity. I would rather not have found this out.

Even though I have know Ratty for years, I have never seen his impersonation of Deirdre from Coronation Street before. I nearly vomited up my pelvic bone.

Sadly, the clearest recollection I have, and I pray to the deities of all the major religions that I imagined this, was me and Ratty urinating off the balcony into St Peters in the early hours of this morning. I have no idea who won the contest for distance, but I was too inebriated to spell my own name. I can only hope that there were no pilgrims below, and that if there were, they did not believe that they were experiencing some sort of bizarre blessing.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

For those of you less well informed, I should point out that “The Scotsman” is the name of a newspaper, and not an indication that the world is down to a singular number of Caledonian males. Despite their propensity for irritating the shit out of their neighbours (porridge, Burns, bagpipes, midges, Glasgow Rangers), the Scots are not a threatened species.

Neither, alas, are physicists. The article in question refers to the arcane musings of the world community of physicists.

This picture:

Is not the centrepiece of the latest Saturday evening game show on the BBC, but rather part of a toy that these deluded individuals have had constructed in Switzerland. They are going to use it to search for something very small. Even smaller than the sum total of common sense present in the consciousness of physicists, should their propaganda be believed.

I have not troubled, and I counsel you to do likewise, to try to fully understand the exact nature of their experiments. I value what remains of my sanity too highly for that. I will try to distil some of the drivel for you courtesy of “The Scotsman”. The italicised sections are reproduced from their website. I hope that they will not sue me. The picture is from the same source, although I have not managed to italicise it. I only got grade 3 CSE physics.

“it will fire two beams of proton particles in opposite directions around a 17-mile ring some 300 feet under the earth's surface”

It sounds as if someone has a Scalextric fetish.

“Then the particles in the beams will collide ….. Each collision will cause an explosion similar to the Big Bang … creating conditions almost identical to those experienced less than a second after the universe came into being.”

No, I don’t believe it. Or rather my attitude is agnostic towards it. To believe that the scientific community can know the exact age of the universe to within a second requires a leap of faith that I am not prepared to indulge in, particularly when my Sky+ Box often misses the beginnings of programmes.

They are looking for something called the “Higgs boson”. No, really. They should have asked me, I have a complete set in my garden shed. They are truly very heavy. It takes both me and Mrs S ages to shift them whenever we want to get the chrysanthemum scissors out.

According to our deranged chums, without the Higgs boson there would be no mass in the universe. No, this is getting too fucking silly for me.

Mr Higgs, and this really grabbed my attention, is described thus:

"He doesn't say very much and when he does, it's not always easy to comprehend what he is talking about …. He is a model scientist."

I commented on this at “The Scotsman”:

I had physics teachers like this at school. I would advise you all that in this case first impressions are accurate. Physicists have nothing to teach us about anything other than the propagation of nonsense, and we should let them all play nicely, away from the rest of us.

I have taken the extraordinarily militant step of writing to the editor of the Telegraph:

Sir,

I note with sadness that you have failed to learn the lesson from a news story that has been widely reported in the popular press over the last few days, to do with the publicising of private celebrations. On the one hand we are presented with sad images of a home wrecked by uninvited guests, and on the other your respected organ announces to the world that the Pope will be shortly celebrating a birthday party.

I hope that he finds it in his heart to forgive you if gangs of drug-addled archbishops destroy his nice home. I shall make it my business to inspect the premises after the celebrations, and if I find any evidence of chalices soiled with vomit, inappropriate urination or graffiti in the Sistine chapel, I shall hold you responsible.

Yours

Vicus Scurra

I resisted the temptation to be verbose. I shall keep you informed about the progress of my campaign.

Thursday, April 05, 2007

It is not, as you will know, my normal practice to comment on news items that feature unfortunate individuals, and to use this forum as a front for ridicule.

I will make an exception in the case of a dentist from Yorkshire whose sad little history has been brought to my attention by those nice people at BBC news.

The gentleman in question has been found guilty of cleaning his fingernails and ears with his instruments, prior to using them to probe the cavities of the good citizens of Batley. (i.e. he used his instruments, not his fingernails and ears, to probe the cavities, let us be clear about this).

It is not, as you will know, my normal practice to comment on the lifestyle choices of my fellow humans, and I leave it to less compassionate commentators to say that those choosing to live in Yorkshire have only themselves to blame.

The star of this news story completed his performance as described by one of his nurses.

"How do you tell your employer that you've just seen him urinate in the sink?" she said.

Mr Hutchinson had claimed he had been cleaning his teeth at the sink as part of his normal routine.

For those of you not conversant with care of dentures, I should point out that there are many proprietary cleansers available at your local pharmacy, and pissing on them is not recommended. (i.e it is recommended that you piss neither on your dentures nor the proprietary cleaners nor your local pharmacy.) If such practices appeal to you, I will not sit in judgement. You daft bastard.

What, then, should you expect from a national health service dentist in this age of new labour? I really cannot say. I would just advise keeping your eyes open, no matter how sharp the instruments look, because that antiseptic rinse might not be within the boundaries of acceptability, no matter how impressive the aim.

I am driven to lower the tone here somewhat, because I have met my match when it comes to poetry on the internet. This morning’s offering from my new friend Reg (sorry to keep going on about him, I expect he has many serious defects in real life), made me laugh more than anything I have ever read on the internet. It may not do the same for you, but I defy anyone not to find it funny. Of course, if I tab across to BBC news and find that Thatcher has died, I may have to revise that judgement. If I find that she has been eaten slowly to death by rats then “may” will become “will”.

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

You have probably all seen that naughty Boris has been at it again, this time picking on the fine citizens of the ancient settlement of Portsmouth. He will soon have a full set.Here is what I posted on his blog:Slightly off topic here, Boris, but I thought we were friends. The route from London to Portsmouth takes you within a Tebbit's scowl of my house in north east Hampshire, and yet you thought it necessary to go all the way to the coast to find a place "too full of drugs, obesity, underachievement and Labour MPs". We in North East Hampshire are proud of our obesity and underachievement. We could probably rustle up a few joints and a tab of acid for you should it be really essential. No Labour MPs, alas, but we could sit in my garden and sing the Internationale. I am very hurt, unless these allegations on Sky news are false or a belated April Fool jape.I am sure he will be very pleased to hear from you all.